Starting off this morning with 夜カフェ. I’m having a bit of trouble with this book. The content isn’t difficult, but I’m not used to the format / vertical text alignment… Every time I try to pick up this book it feels like all the lines get blurred together and I keep losing my place.
I’m realizing that my only experience with reading so far has either been manga (which is vertical, but it’s way easier to parse since it’s separated by speech bubbles so I don’t lose my place) and Satori Reader (which is all text but horizontal so I’m used to it).
I’d assume the solution is simply to get used to it by reading more. So for now I’ll just keep on reading. Other than that I’m enjoying the book so far!
In case you need it, here’s the club’s vocab list by chapter Google Sheet if you’d like the reference! Scroll along the tabs at the bottom all the way to the right to get to the eariler chapters.
Continued reading about Tokyo. This booklet is somewhat boring. Reads more like a tourist pamphlet and I have so far known about almost all places it has mentioned and did know the history (although it was fun to learn the terms that I shared yesterday).
But I will soldier on. If I had a bit more time I could knock it all out, but time is a bit short for a while longer. Happens.
Yesterday I was totally humiliated by Death Note so today I decided to switch for a book from my huge backlog and something light at that. So I’m back to literature for children for literal babies (fitting for me, language-wise ofc). And it means よつばと time! The local book club is sooo crowded so I’m better off to 1v1 this manga at the moment. Thank you @Beyond_Sleepy for your sweet posts, they were the ultimate decider.
Also, I tidied up the home post a bit and flattened the calendar since the way it was before was really bothering me.
Today I started to read section 2, chapter 1 in 透明カメレオン!
I only read three pages before falling asleep I have a horrible headache, so I think I’m going to call it at that for today. Unfortunately, that means no vocab.
Although I was rather busy I managed to get trough 夜カフェ chapter 10 and I’m now 4 pages into chapter 11. As much as I do like the book, I sorta want to read something else. Usually, when reading in German or English, I read two books at the same time. Sadly I’m still not able to do this with Japanese at the moment. It’s not that I forget about the plot or anything, but getting back used to the way that specific novel is written just takes way too much time. Hope that made sense
Well, should finish 夜カフェ around Sunday or Monday, I guess.
Still not sure what to read next. At the moment I’m thinking about ふしぎお菓子屋銭天堂 2 or maybe 魔女の宅急便
I have this problem too!
I bought some reading rulers to help me keep my place, and its really helped me.The ones I have are opaque, with a transparent stripe so that I can focus on one line of text at a time which is especially useful when I need to look away from the book to check vocabulary and then find my place again
11 pages of かがみ, reading ahead for the かがみの孤城 (Kagami no Kojou) Book Club. It was a bit slow going at the start because of some complicated expressions being used, but that’s okay because I’m reading ahead anyway. Story-wise, although there weren’t any clear answers per se (はぐらかす was a much-used word in this section ), I think we are going to learn some new stuff in this next part
Finished chapter four. Turns out this book can be a real page turner! Thoughts: So the people looking for Maomao from the previous chapter did something genius and managed to identify her. And then the chapter ended on a “ohno, what’s going to happen to Maomao now? Let’s find out in the next episode!”
Word of the day: 年嵩
because the latter kanji looks cool it illustrates how this book goes out of its way to use words that I don’t recognize as common (whether this is a good illustration or not… YMMV ). Why not just use the word 年上 instead
oh yeah, note to self: the part about the gates was confusing
Day 7 / Calendar
Today I’ve read around 4 pages of Yoru Café in about an hour spread accross most of the day. I’ve noticed that my understanding ability isn’t the best, and that usually makes me way more tired than usual, and this is why I took frequent (and long) breaks. Actually I’m only leaving this reply now because it’s 11pm and my script doesn’t work for adding the previous day.
Hmm, I know very little about the book other than “woman in コンビニ” but before I got pulled into a book club I was very close to going for reading it now. I have it so I will sometime anyway, but I wonder how I’ll find it. Though if the arthouse comparison holds in the more literal way I want; I sure love more artsy films
Well today is one of those days, cause it’s always one of those days. Got no energy, not doing great mentally, eyes and head ache, but I read 7000+ characters. I thought I’d finish the route today but it played out a little longer than anticipated and at the time I went “nope, I have to thrown in the towel this very instant” it was unfortunately quite the climactic moment.
Real spoilers this time, but I like this image a lot
There were quite a lot of lines I just didn’t fully get today, unfortunately. Mostly there were just little bits of them that I couldn’t seem to properly look up and what have you. They were usually clearly throw away moments and I’m guessing casual, slangy speak is the culprit, but I’m following in general just fine.
I’ll very likely finish up the route tomorrow. The way I’m starting to run through at another 1000 or 2000 characters more than my usual pace is encouraging, but we’ll see what happens when I’m off to another storyline.
You want interesting words? Take your pick. I’ve got 一目惚れ (ひとめぼれ, love at first sight), 儚い (はかない, fleeting, transient, ephemeral, etc), and 看板娘 (かんばんむすめ, “pretty girl who attracts customers to come inside a shop”).
Thanks for your detailed and helpful response! Sounds like you’ve read a few of the books I’m planning to read (世界から猫が消えたなら is also in my want-to-read list on Bookwalker). About the length… it’s definitely going to be the longest book I’ve read so far, but if you find it more interesting than Kiki maybe I’ll enjoy it more as well!
Ah, that makes sense… I suppose it might be better to wait before reading it then, since I’d want to understand コンビニ人間 more fully.
Now I’m hoping it’s understandable and enjoyable enough that I won’t be able to stop reading it
Thanks to both @sycamore and @pocketcat! I’ll go ahead with かがみの孤城. It sounds like an interesting read for sure.
Today I translated 3 pages of よつばと！I’m spending a lot of mental energy on transcribing and translating よつばと！compared with just reading, which I think is great for learning. But I’ve decided I should probably read something else on the side without translating to get more input. I’m considering Satori Reader but any and all suggestions are appreciated
The flowers above the “Day #” links to my post for the previous day, and the flowers below link to the next day, except for the latest day ofc, they link somewhere special
I didn’t hate it, but it was slow (like art house often is), deeply focused on her mental and emotional state (like arthouse often is), and had, for me, an unsatisfying ending (like arthouse often does). Read it if you want, it’s nice to have as a base of comparison when talking to other people. I just think it’s a poor choice for ‘first book’ like I see suggested in various places online because it’s honestly not something I think would be satisfying for a beginner and the plot can feel pretty uncomfortable.
Also a good book! And pretty straight forward along with being reasonably short. There’s also an audiobook for both and I liked them both as well!
I read chapter 47 of Yotsuba, which had a panel in it that made me really laugh. (Final panel of page 157).
After I finished that I decided to try reading one of the things I was recommended yesterday.
I couldn’t decide which recommendation to start with though, so I ended up reading the first 2 chapters of Shirokuma Cafe, and also 10 pages of ふしぎねこのきゅーちゃん
So it was definitely a good reading day for me - thanks for the motivation @Thud and @vonnutje!
Finished 銭天堂!! It was interesting to learn the backstory in the epilogue. And to think I was expecting some sort of horror story collection when I started the book
I just bought かがみの孤城 on Bookwalker. I don’t think I can help myself, so I may read that and 君ノ声 at the same time. Just depends on how I feel. And how busy I get.
I’m actually getting excited about reading again! Oh man, I have far too many books I want to read — both Japanese and English ones lol.
home post 
club’s vocab list by chapter Google Sheet
home post 
I have a horrible headache, so I think I’m going to call it at that for today. Unfortunately, that means no vocab.
My Home Post 
. It was a bit slow going at the start because of some complicated expressions being used, but that’s okay because I’m reading ahead anyway. Story-wise, although there weren’t any clear answers per se (はぐらかす was a much-used word in this section 
), I think we are going to learn some new stuff in this next part 
